All Our Running Is Ahead
by FigureofDismay
Summary: To begin again at the beginning, but with a different slant. A Lizzington AU where Elizabeth Keen is a profiler. No, but really this time. And her very own prospective criminal has entered the frame, and asked for her by name.


_"oh, the devil won't have me, I wonder who will, I wonder who will?" - lisa hannigan, fall_

* * *

Liz's first day as a special agent began with helicopters. Her alarm hadn't gone off and she heard them approach as she rushed around trying to find her keys and her badge in the clutter she'd left on her kitchen table, the low frequency noise beating any concentration on her search out of her head. She tucked them both into her jacket just as there was an ominous pounding on her front door. She stomped over to answer it, though not before tripping over the dog, fully intending to flash her badge and tell whoever it was that they were impeding a federal agent on the way to work, and then got just about the shock of her life.

Being informed that a world renowned criminal was interested in becoming her particular informant was very nearly enough to distract her from the view of Capitol Hill going by beneath the the helicopter's bulbous windows. The combination of stern faced agents, talk of famous criminals and the cinematic view left her with the giddy feeling of having stumbled sideways into a Grisham novel - or what she supposed a Grisham novel might be like, had she ever taken the time out from studying, training and working to read one. Liz entertained the brief, slightly hysterical thought that she was in fact still oversleeping her alarm, safe in bed and dreaming.

Assistant Director Harold Cooper of Counter Terrorism was a handsome black man of early middle age, with general air of intelligence and equanimity. Cooper had collected her personally from the wooden-faced ginger agent of the helicopter ride and led her down to his office with perfect courtesy. Liz felt she would better appreciate his obvious integrity and cunning if it wasn't being aimed so sternly in her direction in the form of deep, just-veiled suspicion. Justified suspicion given the circumstances, she had to admit, and very difficult to disprove, but still uncomfortable and flat out wrong as far as she knew.

"I've been vetted, sir," she said respectfully, "You must have looked at my records from Quantico, my new assignment… It's very hard to prove a negative. I don't know what to tell you, I have no idea how Reddington knows about me. It's like I've been saying to, um-" she nodded at the grim-faced agent who'd collected her, who had taken a chair at the back of the office and was glowering with barely held patience.

"Agent Ressler," supplied Cooper, with his own thoughtful frown.

"Right. Well. All I know about Reddington is what I learned in seminar."

"Give us your profile, Agent Keen. Why do you suppose he is interested in you?" asked Cooper.

"Like I said, all I know about Reddington comes from a seminar at the academy, and that was a few months ago. Without his file in front of me, I'm not sure that I could accurately…"

"Not his profile, Agent, yours. You're a profiler, tell us your profile, what about you might attract a guy like Reddington?"

"I… um. I don't see how that would help, sir," said Liz, baffled, "Assessments done by people more experienced and more objective than I would be are already in my file… How would you know I wasn't just telling you what you thought I wanted to hear?"

"As you said yourself, I have looked at your file agent, I would know if what you said didn't line up with what I read. But I take your point. That still leaves us with the question of why Reddington requested you."

"I don't know, sir. Maybe he picked a name from the graduating class at random. Maybe he wanted to work with someone inexperienced who wouldn't get the upper hand. Maybe he thought a woman would be more easily impressed and manipulated. Maybe he wanted you to prove that you were acting in good faith to make him an informant before sharing with you, so he set you an arbitrary hoop to jump through, it's hard to say."

"Hmm," said Assistant Director Cooper, Counter Terrorism, and exchanged dour glances with Agent Ressler and his entourage.

Liz tried to ignore a sinking feeling and wished she hadn't added on that last one, especially not in such an unintentionally glib tone of voice. She had the worst sense of dread as they herded her off again, and wondered if they would give her a chance to call someone to look after Hudson if they were taking her into custody. But then they didn't arrest her, or hold her for questioning. Instead they took her to meet a dangerous criminal. She wasn't entirely sure, as she stood at the top of a steel staircase watching a large bulletproof glass cage retract from around said criminal who sat chained to a chair, if she might not have preferred the former option.

* * *

The criminal in the cage was not quite what she might have expected. She'd had an image in her mind, despite her best intentions and her training, to go with the FBI Most Wanted label. It was an image of reptilian calculation and cold bloodedness, of lupine aggression and bloodthirsty intent. It fit with any number of mentally disordered or distressingly sane individuals she'd interviewed in her career, before and after they'd admitted to their brutal crimes, and then exponentially enlarged to fit the magnitude of Reddington's reported villainy. Liz had braced herself to meet that viciousness head on, and then it manifestly failed to appear.

Reddington was not as tall as she might have expected, though it was hard to tell while he was seated. He was also better dressed, more polished in manner, as genteel in posture as was possible while manacled wrist and ankle. The shaggy dark blond and silver hair of the the most recent CCTV capture, the image she remembered from his Quantico profile, was shorn to a brief stubble, revealing a receding hairline, mobile, expressive brows and a well formed skull. Far from being stone faced and hardened, Reddington's expressions and body language was ready and responsive, and Liz could see no hesitation of forethought in it.

Reddington _smiled_ at her. He complimented her. He congratulated her on her training and her posting, apologized for throwing a wrench in the gears. He asked her if she went home often to see Sam. He told her about Zamani, and a little girl who was in danger with fairly convincing concern over the girl's eventual safety.

Trying to rattle her, Liz assumed, trying to appear knowing and establish his value. Except that Reddington had smiled at her with a blushing warmth and eagerness, taking in her whole appearance and leaning forward in his seat inasmuch as his restraints allowed, in a way that was hard to pass of as feigned for show. Except that he'd mentioned Sam's illness with a gravity that was respectful if not understandable. In spite of her instinct to pass all of it off as a ploy, Liz had a hard time shrugging off the feeling that Reddington was, if not a more honest criminal, at least a breed of criminal more than usually complex, perhaps even a criminal motivated by something more than a mania for self-aggrandizement.

Liz's interest as a profiler was undeniable piqued. Liz's sense of self preservation, however, was making various prodding noises, warning her that she risked a great deal of exposure if she let herself get embroiled in the tug of war between the FBI and the so-called Concierge of Crime. She also hoped for all of their sakes that Reddington wasn't such an awkward, conceited ass that he himself came up with that ridiculous epithet. She doubted sincerely that he was.

* * *

The girl, Beth, was safe, had been taken and returned and the bomb that had been left in her cute, pink backpack had been diffused and taken off their hands. Liz had flown in a helicopter, had been in a car wreck, had been gassed and nearly blown up, had found herself trying to give a tearful pep talk to herself while shut in a CIA blacksite bathroom, had comforted a terrified seven year old and argued with a super criminal. It had been among the most singular and eventful days of her life. She was exhausted, shaken and no closer to understanding what had put her in Reddington's sights.

It was late by the time she was deemed debriefed enough, and AD Cooper took her aside afterwards. He lead her back to his office at the Blacksite, a dark, wood veneer paneled, file cabinet lined box that overlooked the site floor, giving the combined impression of a bureaucrat's den, a building contractor's lair and a hunting blind. Cooper's desk was piled high with files, paper weighted with abandoned coffee mugs, as was natural to the desks of team leaders and police captains everywhere. She took it in with a comforting sense of returning normalcy.

"I'm sure this is not what you expected for your first day as a special agent," said Cooper.

"No."

"However, you're preformed admirably under pressure, and the fact remains that Reddington has made it clear that he won't give us access to his intel except through you. Any new thoughts as to why that might be?"

"I'm sorry, sir, but no. Obviously he's researched me, but I wouldn't say he's done more with it than we would to build a report with a suspect in a tense situation. My guess is still that he picked me at random from my graduating class."

"Yes, you may very well be right. It's something we will continue to look into going forward, of course. Which brings me to the other issue at hand. Going forward would seem to require your participation, Agent Keen, so the question is, are you up for this?"

Liz hesitated, unsure if flat out refusal was even a viable option if she wanted to keep her career and remain above suspicion. Not that she wanted to refuse, in fact. She was too curious, too aware of what a remarkable mind Raymond Reddington possessed, and what a rare opportunity she had before her. On the other hand it had been a long, brutal, miserable day, and not an experience she was looking forward to repeating.

"I want to do my part to help," she said carefully, "Of course, sir. But did Reddington ever actually say that I had to be a part of the field team to earn his attentions? I think I might be of more use to you as an intermediary, and profiler. I got the standard training of course, but I don't have much experience there and my specialization is in forensic psychology. And, forgive me if I seem crass, sir, but there is an awful a lot I could learn from studying Reddington specifically."

"Like a quid pro quo thing, you mean. You study him, he talks to you…" said Cooper, and shook his head, "I agree, Agent, it all sounds perfectly neat and tidy. But there's a danger, too, the illusion of intimacy and trust. You could end up well over your head."

"You mean, you think he could end up the Lecter to my Starling? Due respect, Director, Reddington may be charming, but Lecter was a world class manipulator on another level entirely. Not to mention, the former agent was a uniquely damaged individual. Besides, I know about professional detachment, sir. I don't intend to get led down the rabbit hole."

"You know what they say about intentions, Agent Keen. All the same, I'd just as soon not put an agent in the field who wasn't prepared for it. And as you say, there's a whole hell of a lot we can all learn from Reddington."

"Yes, sir."

"I'll tell you what, Agent. If you can convince Reddington to play along, and keep detailed records of all your findings, his detailed history and profile would make a lot of people very happy. This may be the best thing that ever happened to our careers after all," said Cooper, sitting back and lacing his fingers together with satisfaction. "In the meantime, it's late. I have a report on this mess to finish up, but there's no reason you need to hang around. Go home, Agent. Get some rest. Hell, take a day or two, you deserve it and it'll give me time to finalize your transfer. I'm sure Reddington will force the next move before long."

* * *

Liz did go home. Her lovely townhouse was quiet and dark and in exactly the same state of disarray as she'd left it that morning, as was the perpetual fate of those who live alone. She walked the dog. She poked through her fridge and found something unobjectionable to eat. She took something for the headache of fatigue building behind her eyes. She sat at her kitchen table in silence, staring into the middle distance and listening to her empty house, trying to out-wait the wired feeling that still hummed in her bones.

It didn't work. She tried to talk herself out of the stupid, impulsive, potentially career endangering idea that had formed in her mind. That also didn't work. Liz put on her jacket again, said goodbye to the dog, and went back out.

* * *

The hotel where Reddington was being put up was of the highest quality, beautiful, well appointed, well equipped with security and concierge, and now of course swarming with FBI agents. In a city frequented with foreign dignitaries, the nicer hotels were all used to FBI, Secret Service and private security presences, however, so with the aid of her badge and an air of authority she had no trouble making her way. In fact, the security worked so smoothly, that with the story of being sent on an errand by AD Cooper and a tired smile, she found herself standing in front of Reddington's door, watching the agent on duty knock, before she felt entirely ready to deal with the man himself.

Reddington opened the door of his suite himself, which surprised her though it shouldn't have because she'd just met all of his guard detail stationed in the hall. He'd already earned himself an awful lot of leeway in his custody arrangement compared with the shackles and cage of not even 48 hours before, although she was hardly naive enough to believe he was the only valuable criminal who had reaped the benefits of his informant status.

"Lizzy," he said, sounding genuinely surprised and pleased, "What a pleasure. Come in, make yourself comfortable. Did our Harold send you to see me or are you here on your own recognizance?"

"I had some more questions," she said, hesitating between sofa and arm chair. The chair was a safer choice but it also betrayed a hesitance she had no interest in showing. She took the sofa.

"Can I get you a drink? The bar is well stocked or I'm sure we could convince the lovely gentlemen outside my door to let through a coffee service."

"I'm alright, thank you."

"Of course. So, Lizzy... I assume they must be fairly urgent questions to send you across town at one am on a school night, as the saying goes."

"Across town? You know where I live? Have you been having me followed?"

"Just an assumption, I'm afraid, based on the FBI pay scale and the general geography of DC," he said smoothly, and took an elaborately nonchalant seat at the other end of the sofa, facing her with a face full of curious intent. "Now, what are these questions? Not things, I take it, That you are eager for your industrious colleagues to overhear…?"

"How do you know Sam?" she asked, starting right at the heart of it.

"Sam?"

"My father. You asked about my going to visit him. You asked about his health. That wasn't for show, and it wasn't just establishing your value. You do actually know him, I could see it in your face, hear it in your voice. You know him and you care about him."

"If you're so sure, then why trouble yourself to ask?"

"I wasn't asking _if_ you knew him, I'm asking why you do."

There was a considering pause as the two combatants assessed each other down the length of an elegant, beige sofa, each feigning poise and nonchalance. Reddington was well set off in the cream and crimson suite sitting room, it complimented his gold and rose complexion and his rumpled but perfectly tailored suit. Apparently his only concession to the hour and the long day had been the discarding of the jacket and tie, and a glance told her that he even still wore his polished dress shoes. She hadn't even come close to rousing him from his bed. Liz told herself that this wasn't disappointing in the least, though she knew deep down that she'd hoped to catch him off guard at least slightly.

He eyed her carefully, a speculative gaze that was all-encompassing of her person, and yet was not the leer of a man assessing a woman but that of an old, long distant, acquaintance looking for that spark of familiarity in a once-known face. Liz was unsettled by it, by Reddington's intensity, by his frank stare that was not fettered by polite deference, and yet she was drawn to him. It was rare in her experience to meet a person who was so willing to look at someone with unashamed, unsexualized curiosity and was willing to withstand the same without the usual dominance plays or nerves.

"Sam is an old friend of mine," said Reddington at last, is a different sort of voice than she'd heard from him before, warmer, more personal. "Or was, I should say. We haven't been in touch often these last years as his connection to me would be to his detriment. Sam is the most loyal and honorable of men, though, so of course he does not allow that I should cut all ties, and I am the richer for it. We were very close long ago, before I found myself on the wrong side of a treason charge, and even that was not enough to shake his confidence in me. We worked for the same people, in the same place, at largely the same time, thinking we worked on the side of the angels…. But even so Sam had the horse sense to get out before it was too late. More than that I don't think I should say, just at the moment."

"Oh? And why would that be?"

"Because not all of it is my story to tell. And because I don't think you'd be ready to believe me on certain of the more… sensational points. It is amazing to me just how much of what went on in the later days of the Cold War that sounds now like cheap fiction. Even things I lived and witnessed strain my own credulity, and I am afraid, Lizzy, that our trust does not yet stretch that far."

"Then how am I supposed to know if you're telling the truth? How am I supposed to know if there is a bigger story or if you just want to keep my attention for some reason?"

"You could ask your father. Or you could trust that at the very least I've shown that I am more interested in accomplishing something worthwhile than in playing you for a fool. You're a profiler and a student of human nature, I have faith that you are able to look at my actions and see the difference between the man and the mask. For the FBI, yes, there must be pretense, the fact that you've come here under the cover of darkness to ask these questions shows me that you are just as aware of that as I am. But between you and I, Lizzy… I will not lie to you. I'm here to help you, to warn you. To be what you need of me."

"Your tone is very familiar, Reddington. Is there a reason for that? Because we don't know each other, and I would think that you would want to be more careful while you're still earning my trust."

"Please, I have never been over-fond of that name. My friends call me Raymond. My associates call me Red."

"And I'm neither of those. I'm your handler as an informant to the FBI, so I think a little formality is just about right."

"You didn't come here tonight as my handler, thought, as thrilling as that term sounds. Or even, I think, to ask me about your father," he said, leaning forward, "You came here tonight because you were curious, and you wanted to see the criminal in his natural habitat. I don't begrudge you that, Lizzy. I'm curious about you too. But let us not get started on the wrong foot."

"You don't think that the bomb and the car crash did that already?"

"None of they was my doing, if you recall. And I did go to the trouble of warning you about what would happen."

"True. Fair enough. Red, then, if that's… informal enough for you."

He inclined his head with a sardonic smile and Liz had the uncomfortable feeling that she was masking herself ridiculous through showy punctiliousness. She cleared her throat and straightened her blouse and tried to remember how she would talk to friends of her father's, the kind who came in by the back door, unidentified, trusted but secret. It had been a long while since she had been her father's assistant at the office, but she still remembered that little thrill of fear and wonder when those friends of his appeared, how her heart would beat fast and her shoulders would find a new surer carriage. And now here again was a new, old disreputable friend of her father's. She had to bite her lip to keep from smiling.

"So. Red. The fact that you know Sam goes a long way to explaining why you picked me of all people to use as your intermediary. And the timing… that was just because of zamani? Or my graduation? Or was there something else? "

"The information I came across about the Ambassador gave me the idea to come to you the way I did. Given our respective statuses in the the eyes of the law, you can see that my avenues for making my introduction to you were… limited, to say the least. This was the least objectionable option on the table."

"Really? Turning yourself in to federal custody was the _least_ objectionable?"

"Not without its difficulties, I admit. And poor Marvin, my lawyer, had some very strong, slightly hysterical words in objection. Paragraphs of them, actually, and much of it unfit to repeat in mixed company of such short acquaintance," Reddington told her with a casual and seemingly genuine nonchalance, "He called it suicidal recklessness and asked if i'd recently had a brain injury. Marvin doesn't put a lot of stock in the trustworthiness of law enforcement organizations."

"In the trustworthiness of… well, I guess if he's _your_ lawyer, he must have a different perspective," she said, and impulsive jab but Reddington only smiled and inclined his head in acknowledgement.

"Nevertheless, I could hardly come knock on your front door and hope to earn your trust and forestall you before you put me in handcuffs and took me to your supervisor. Of course, even if I had managed to convince you to be lenient, it would put you in the position of having aided and abetted a fugitive felon."

"I don't think you would have convinced me," she said skeptically.

"No. Likely not," he said, "And the other method was far too unsavory and was never on the table in the first place."

She thought about what he meant, quietly for a while, and realized of course Reddington was a criminal, with access to the means to persuade her that were entirely more forcible. It brought her up short for a second or two, thinking about what he could have done. But the eloquent look of distaste on his face was reassuring and profound.

"Well," she said, smiling wryly, "Thank you for that, then."

"So, you see, my little list was the most efficient means to an end."

"Yes, actually. I do see. So it seems we're stuck with each other now," she said, "But what I want to know is what could possible be so important that you would risk- I'm not actually sure what they do to slippery characters like you when top FBI and NSA investigators get their hands on them, but I'm sure it isn't nice. It certainly doesn't come with a full bar and high thread count sheets."

"Oh, we hardly know each other, Elizabeth, certainly not well enough for you to… appraise my threadcount… but once we do, I'm sure you'll see that I'm like a cat. I always land on my feet," he said, leaning towards her with such a knowing, urgent look that she found herself also leaning in, "As for my purpose here, I would love to tell you. I will tell you all, and soon. It's very important, and also has to do with things which are… not nice, as you so succinctly put it. But I'm afraid it falls under the dual heading of things you simply won't believe until I've had a chance to prove myself to you, and things about which you should really ask Sam before we go any further. Suffice to say, I'm not here as a threat. I'm here to help you, if I can. If you'll let me."

"You realize that's fantastically cryptic, right? And just about clear as mud?"

"Yes. And I'm sure it's very frustrating to someone like yourself, who is used to dealing with specifics. But give me time, Lizzy. Let me prove my value to you."

"Alright," she said, swallowing down a rising up feeling of elation, trying not to grin like she knew that she had the winning hand, "on one condition. You're right, I didn't just come here to ask about my father, and it wasn't simple curiosity, either. Not exactly. You see, Red, I am a profiler. A specialist in the criminal mind. And here you are, number four of the FBI's most wanted, and a mastermind like no other or so the story goes, turned up specifically to ask for my attention. It's my hope, my proposition that we can come to some kind of mutually beneficial arrangement."

"You want to… profile me, Lizzy?" asked Red, a warm, heavy lidded look on his aristocratic face like he was suggesting something far more personal, easing forward once more on the sofa. Their knees touched ever so slightly.

Liz couldn't help herself, she felt herself smiling, coy and knowing. She let herself study this man, dangerous, eloquent, poised but eager, finely dressed but disheveled, filled with unknown, unspeakable depths, and capable of such violence. He was polished in appearance, with his smooth skin and thoughtful frown, his confident, relaxed posture, his human, empathetic eyes. He was not immediately imposing but he had gravitas, allure. He knew how to use his looks, his velvety voice, his vast, quick-turning intelligence on everyone around him. She felt flushed, electric, her skin buzzed. She took a breath and leaned languidly against the back of the sofa.

"Oh, Red," she said, in a low, smooth tone, meeting his heavy gaze, leaning even further into his space, "I want _much_ more than a profile…. I think there's a book in this, at the least. Don't you?"

Red looked dumbfounded for a moment, the sultry look dropping to a soft-mouthed, puzzled slow blink. And then his pale, watchful eyes sparked with blazing realization. For a half second, waiting for his reaction, Liz felt for the first time in his presence a hint of fear. And then his fine, mobile face bloomed and creased with a grin and he laughed, a genuine, startled sound that verged on a boyish giggle, not the cultured, pantomime mirth she's heard before under the watchful eye of cameras and guards.

"Oh, Lizzy, " he said, eye's merry, "Oh, yes. A book at the very _least_. Of course. You've earned it. I will be your most willing subject, Dr. Keen."

* * *

So, dear readers, did you like it? Shall I continue? I can see this as a nice little canon disaster averting one-shot ending here, or I can see it extending to a smallish fic of about 4 chapters. What do you guys think?

And yes, I removed Tom Keen from the narrative but left the name Keen, totally unattached to him, because we're all so used to 'Elizabeth Keen' by now aren't we? Also, yes, that was a blink and you'll miss it reference to Clarice and Hannibal being real not fiction in this AU Verse. Probably the only time that will be mentioned, if I go forward with this, but it was too good an opportunity to miss ;)


End file.
